Bittersweet Symphony: The Dream is Gone
by jtm1848
Summary: While the Enterprise sits in drydock, T'Pol copes with the psychiatric fallout of her drug abuse and mental strain.


Note: this is loosely canon, set in the time frame during the _Enterprise_'s refit, roughly parallel with "Home." Following the _Enterprise_'s return, T'Pol was rushed to Vulcan for neurological treatment, but Trip initially stayed on Earth for his own medical observation (the coda is coming shortly). I'm trying for a more honest portrayal of her mental collapse and drug abuse, so if that makes you uncomfortable, please feel free to not read on.

Lyrical verses are from Nine Inch Nails.

* * *

_Fade in._

_Cover.  
Heat.  
Inhale._

_Cover.  
Heat.  
Inhale._

Vulcan.

The Mother World, the womb of her children and the forge of their desire.

Beneath the punishing heat of Nevasa, a white light hanging high in skies of flame and gamboge, lived the aging world of desert and desolation, an infertile expanse of weathered rock and scattered sand that enveloped the planet in uncompromising hostility.

By day, scorching temperatures ripped through the thin air, bombarding the ragged ridges and canyons with an intensity of fury and flame that baked the netherworld as of a kiln, threatening to scorch the very life that clung to survival in the desert without repose. Only craggy escarpments of sandstone provided momentary shade, even as they too slowly crumbled, but no protection existed from the pyretic glow of the sun. The searing rays torched the arid, dust-cloaked skies of the furnace, sucking out the phantom moisture from desiccated air.

Under the blazing pummeling of Nevasa, the desert surface appeared as though washed out, its colors achromatized in lightened hues of copper and rust. Rugged ridges and furrows dotted the broken landscape, showing where once great waters had flowed and gushed, carving intricate pathways through the sandstone that overlay ancient lava beds; but now, only the barrenness remained, the infertile granules and cinders smelted beneath the implacable glare.

T'Pol stood on such a ridge, exposing herself to the cauterizing heat that molded the Vulcan soul amid solitude and timelessness. The heat permeated through her loose-fitting caftan and _shemagh_, but the slender woman paid it little heed: this inhospitable wasteland had birthed her ancestors in conformation with its demands, creating a race that could find life even amidst the desolate infecundity. She would be fine, at least for the moment; her body clung to moisture with ferocity, and inner eyelids protected her from the glaring brightness of her bleached world.

And, despite its hostility to the movement of life, Vulcan was her home.

Born and raised in this astringent land, a childhood birthed in the hardship and privation of the endless desert, an adult consummated in the parching broiler of unforgiving harshness and austerity; the Vulcan soul was crafted within this dying world of isolated promontories, scattered and long forgotten, jutting upwards amid the merciless prairies of long-dead rock, interspersed with sporadic mesas of sienna-tinged stratum.

_Yes, _T'Pol decided, letting the blistering heat enter her and into her deepened lungs, consuming what little moisture it could find along the way. _It's good to be home._ She had stood on many other worlds in many other systems—Earth, Tellar, and Andor; Rigel Kentaurus, Arcturus, and Vega; unnamed worlds located deep in the Delphic Expanse—_but it is logical, _she decided, for even a sentient being to express preference for one's own homeworld. Even if it could make unwary beasts burst into spontaneous combustion.

Somewhere before her, sitting exposed on the bedraggled emptiness, was her mother's home, but T'Pol was in no particular rush to arrive. She had communicated earlier; T'Pol had provided to set time for her arrival, merely mentioning that she was "on the way." And it felt good, T'Pol supposed, to wander a bit, roam through the desert wastelands for several days in perfect isolation, free and alone with her own thoughts and decrepit logic.

The fiery heat burned her skin and beyond, providing life-giving flame to her suffering body and mind, exsiccating distress as if it were a drop of moisture. Out here, on the parched rock of the Vulcan desert, she could at last commune in boundless measure; the hospitals and doctors who condemned her addiction were far away, the priests and the curates who tarnished her with _t'kaul'ama _meaningless, and the _Glan-famu _and_ Zhu-famu _nonexistent. Here, she could burn away the pain that stalked her footsteps, rending her soul in conflict and doubt.

She stepped downward, down the face of the ridge, following a well-worn path that angled its way through the craggy walls of steep rock. Stepping lightly, she moved with cautious grace, never once rushing her way as she navigated tenuous toeholds and anchors with fluid simplicity. Generations of intuition took hold, guiding her path along its descent to the ragged valley below.

Once—many eons ago, far beyond the mirage of time—these lands were bright and lush, adorned with a cacophony of life. Powerful blue-green trees stood strong and tall, unbent by the thundering winds and tempests of rain that swelled the rivers with roaring rapids. Meadows abounded with harmonies of color, infused by the spirit of life that embodied the young planet.

But the sparkling sheen of life was torn away by the unrelenting winds of atomic fire.

_Alep-tel e'shua_, its name be damned! The _vonal-salan _of all-consuming blaze swept the once-lush planet, breathing hot coals and parting the heavens! A darkness fell about the sky, and thick clouds of poisonous rain warred with the brightness of lightning! The valleys of the world were exposed, and the foundations of Mother Vulcan laid bare beneath the flaming blast of its breath!

The lonely desolation of the desert provided a sublimity of eternal strength for the shattered Vulcan mind. It was the purity of fire; the burning showers of beating sun falling upon the infertile rock, the hot winds gusting through torn valleys and splintered peaks, the ferocity and savagery of raw survival.

T'Pol pulled her caftan more tightly about her slender frame in reflexive response to a slight gradient in temperature brought on by the shadowy edges of the long-dead coulee. Here and there, loose gravel shifted beneath the pads of her feet, but inbred instinct kept her balanced with scarce concern. The dormant skills of generations past were awakened within her, protecting T'Pol's body even as her mind sought its own journey through the purifying harshness.

Beset by repeated assaults and sustained onslaughts of plethoric barbarity, the murderous savagery of barbarous emotion and the deprivation of sobriety, her once-trained mind was torn in pieces. Cast into a turbulent state of madness, the lifelong lessons of discipline and control failed her entirely, shattering her reason and dashing her countenance onto the stale winds.

Everything was at war.

_Cover.  
Heat.  
Inhale._

_I woke up today  
to find this other place__  
with a trail of footprints__  
from where I ran away._

Months had passed since T'Pol had last felt the serene logic of another Vulcan presence. She spent day after day, night after night, surrounded by the rampant emotionalism of the human crew. Like crashing surf, it pounded on her mental walls, relentless in its fury, stripping away her protection and overwhelming the dikes, possessed with a rage that sank its fangs deep into the fertile meat of her mind.

When the _Enterprise _stumbled across the _Seleya_, T'Pol was part of the away team that boarded the drifting vessel. It was a deeply schizophrenic experience for her; the nightmare of deranged Vulcans coupled with the bizarre sense of serenity that emanated, like a soothing salve, from some unknown ship. In many ways, it was the beginning of the end for T'Pol: the rabidity provided the first thunderous bursts that wore at her mind, undermining her control, making her more susceptible to the slightly less-manic emotional effusions of her human crewmates.

And when the pain grew too much to bear, T'Pol, prideful in her Vulcan heritage, refused to see the doctor. Logically confident that she could manage the situation, she reached out for a certain solution.

Too late, she found herself trapped in a vicious cycle. She became addicted to the drug; she could no longer function without the emotional deadening it provided, but the more she consumed, the less relief it offered. What had started as an occasional habit became weekly, then daily; and then she found herself desperately injecting the substance before every duty shift, scheming ways to carry a little extra with her, in case she needed a midday boost. The cycles became wilder, the peaks higher and the valleys lower, and she felt herself spinning out of control. The sense of serenity, she noted in chagrin, was false; but now, it was all she had, and T'Pol clung to it desperately.

The last week had been the worst.

_Cover.  
Heat.  
Inhale._

_As black as the night can get__  
everything is safer now__  
there's always a way to forget__  
once I learn to find a way..._

In the aftermath of the Xindi attack, the sense of tension aboard the _Enterprise _had exploded. Even the human crew was feeling the effects of the palpable alarm, unrelieved in the constant schedule of 18-hour duty shifts as they tried to hold their vessel together with baling wire. The storm centered in T'Pol's mind, crashing against her levees with the force of hurricanes. No longer content to erode the barriers, the breakers crushed her fragile defenses, shattering them into a thousand pieces, and tore through her mind with a fury possessed of illogic.

T'Pol shot up in her bed, her chest heaving for air. Her sleep was inhabited by nightmares; her mind felt fried, as though every cell had been put to the torch, and her body shook in rampant quaking. She couldn't focus, she couldn't think, she couldn't get control of the shaking—_stop the damn shaking!_ Her eyes darted back and forth, unable to fix on anything, jumping around, as though seeking an anchor in the physical reality, but they found nothing.

Her mind raced of its own accord, careening back and forth from one extreme to the other, the panic and the fear overwhelming any sense of higher thought. She tried gripping the sides of her bed for physical stability, but her hands missed; she tried again, and they missed again; a third time, she was successful, but her seizuring muscles were unable to grab the object.

Any sense of decorum long gone, the deepest impulses of her mind cried out for the one relief, for the cool, comforting balm of drugged deadening. She lurched from her bed, crashing into a bulkhead, and before she knew it, T'Pol found herself hurtling down the corridor.

There were people watching her, she knew; she noticed them, on the fringes of her consciousness, staring at her in perplexity and unrestrained curiosity. But it was no matter to her: all she knew was the desperate craving inside of her, threatening to consume her with maniacal rabidity, and it drove her inexorably with its lustful need to sate the incontrollable pain inside her. All other thoughts, all other concerns, were banished from her mind.

Mashing the control panel with her hand, T'Pol forced her way into the airlock control chamber. Reaching up for the EV helmets, she managed to knock several to the floor, where they landed with a mind-clashing ring, before she locked onto one, setting it on her head in the futile hope that it would block out some—_any_—of the crushing current that pounded her head with debilitating racket. She managed to toss an EV suit over her arm, and she was gone.

Catapulting herself back down the corridor, T'Pol knew she was lurching from bulkhead to bulkhead, unable to keep her own balance, but she didn't care. She had a mission to perform, one goal to accomplish. She focused on the pain, on the searing sting, the only thing familiar to her, the only thing that seemed real. Everything else had gone away, phantoms lost in the mist. The hunger inside drove her, but at the same time, it was the entirety of her existence, and she reveled in it, plunging into the embrace of her old friend.

Now she was at the cargo bay, the depressurized cargo bay, and she haltingly twisted her body into the EV suit, her fingers fiddling with the seals, but the drive inside her overwhelmed her sense of preservation. Without checking the seals, she opened the bay doors; the alarms were offline, the locks were down, and the doors slammed shut behind her, minimizing the atmospheric rush into the cargo bay.

_Where is it? I know where it is. It's in here. Where is it? _Concentrating, forcing her mind to center on the pain, like meditating on a flame, T'Pol made herself think, until the glimmer arose from the depths of her maelstrom. A few quick steps, and she found it; ripping off the lid of the insulated container, she pulled out a tube, and shook out a rock of trellium-D.

With her salvation in hand, it was back into the corridor. She ripped off the EV helmet, leaving it lie beside a pile of debris; tripping, she stripped the suit, tossing it aside with no further thought. It was gone, out of her mind, out of her reality, a part of the hollow world around her. Her instinctual drives kept her moving, her muscles functioning autonomically, her long dash having given her body time to adapt to her manic state of mind.

Around the corner, and she entered a science lab; not just _any _science lab, but _her _science lab, the one she had reserved for her personal use ever since the day she had first manipulated the trellium ore. The pain, overwhelming her, forced her mind to retreat farther and farther; and now, T'Pol watched herself as she powered up her equipment, shoving the rock into a chamber, and triggering the preset control.

Her eyes fixated on the transformations, T'Pol watched as the bases and acids inside the rock separated, and has heat was added, a trail of gas plumed upwards to the top of the chamber. Spellbound, her mind captured by the sheer beauty, she watched as the chamber gradually filled, and her hand clasped a hypospray, readying it for use.

When the process was complete, T'Pol affixed the hypospray to the chamber, and transferred the gaseous substance to the medical devise. With the desperate control known only to a junkie, she shoved the hypospray against her neck, injecting the contents directly into her jugular vein.

The effect was immediate.

The drug hit her system, bringing with it instant relief. A comforting cloak descended upon her, the rampant, manic thoughts disappearing, replaced with the calming presence of nothingness. Her breathing slowed, her palpitations stuttered to a halt, her blood cooled, and she found that she could see and hear again.

Deep into the embrace she plunged, wrapping herself in the soothing wrap, quenching the fires that had threatened her existence. Deadening her telepathic senses, it protected her mind from within and without; the crashing breakers reduced to becalmed ripples, the flaming torch reduced to the glowing promise of a solitary ember.

T'Pol knew she was damaging herself, but she couldn't resist the siren call. The drug tore a hole through her soul, but the old, familiar blanket was her rod of strength, protecting her from the broken thoughts and haunting memories, washing away the stains of time and making the feelings disappear.

_Cover.  
__Heat.  
Inhale._

_There is a place that still remains__  
it eats the fear it eats the pain__  
the sweetest price I'll have to pay__  
the day the whole world went away!_

"Mother," T'Pol said in soft surprise, half-rising from the table in polite greeting. The morning was still young, the soft smell of a new day carried on the fiery breeze of dawning light; far across the desert, the face of Nevasa crept the horizon, sending rays of ardent warmth into the relative coolness of the predawn wastelands. In these waning moments of warming skies, as the dust ignited in brilliant displays of Tyrian ruby and violet, one could still find the hints of life that thrived in this most barren of worlds.

As Nevasa dawned, the promise of the coming crematory slowly drove the desert life into seclusion; the _ch'kariya _burrowed deep in the sandy soil, the _vralt _sought out the depths of caves, and the _kushel _continued their lonely flight, forever chasing the dying embers of nightfall across the broken rocks. Soon, T'Pol knew, only a scarce handful of phototrophic plants would be visible, drawing their fuel from the hydrogen-cyanide salts infused within the charred rock.

T'Les pulled out a chair and sat gracefully, taking a seat beside her only daughter. The older woman was past her prime, though far from aged; her hair was colored with dusty gray, with years of experience lining her face. She said nothing, but extended a bowl towards T'Pol, lifting off a covering cloth to reveal the plum-colored fruits within.

"The _nar'ru _vines have bloomed early this year," T'Pol remarked without much thought, and she promptly castigated herself for the mental lapse. It _was _unexpected, seeing the hardened berries before her; but even a child possessed greater discipline.

"I've had ample time to attend them," T'Les observed. Her voice was light and slightly tart, as though harboring an unseen edge of unwanted humor.

"Are you not enjoying your sabbatical?" Again, T'Pol found need to castigate herself. "Are you not finding your sabbatical…restful?"

A soft snort escaped through T'Les' nostrils. "My sabbatical is _quite _restful," she replied. "Though perhaps not so stimulating," she allowed, popping a ripe berry into her mouth. T'Pol could taste the sweet juice on her own tongue. "However, you still haven't told m the reason for visit," T'Les noted, segueing into a new focus.

"I didn't know one was necessary," T'Pol retorted crossly, and she sighed inwardly; she was making a fool of herself, exposing the mockery of her discipline. She had risen early, seeking the extra time to compose herself before T'Les rose, but even that had gone awry.

T'Les' face remained placid, but a slight twinkle in one eye indicated that she took no offense. "I thought perhaps you'd decided to rejoin the High Command," T'Les suggested.

Her mother's patience almost made it worse for T'Pol—but such a thing was emotive reasoning, and thus to be quelled. "The High Command has not invited me back," T'Pol answered dispassionately. "I've been offered a full commission with Starfleet. I am…considering accepting it."

T'Les' brows rose in unison.

The silence perturbed T'Pol. "A Starfleet posting is no less important than one with the High Command," she averred, as if seeking to convince herself of the proposition. "Perhaps more so. I could contribute more than I can on Vulcan. It is logical."

"Contribute to _who_?" T'Les countered quietly. "Is it logical to provide unfiltered knowledge and ability to such a rash, violent species? How does that benefit Vulcan?"

T'Pol shot an unfiltered glare at her mother. "As I recall, you _encouraged _me to leave."

"And I expected you to return," T'Les rejoined. "You were always fascinated with alien worlds, and you needed experience; serving with humans was a logical progression in your education. But perhaps you learned too much." With practiced ease, she popped another berry into her mouth. "I'm told that human children often place their own wishes first, ahead of the good of their family."

T'Pol tightened sharply. "That's true for the most part," she replied warily, uncomfortable with the insinuation.

"You have been disregarding your obligations, T'Pol."

T'Pol sought to quell the bristling hairs on her nape. "I'm sure Father would have approved," she snapped back.

"Your father believed that our work should enrich Vulcan society," T'Les answered pointedly. "But you propose to deny Vulcan society, and to enrich Earth." She kept the fruit in her mouth, allowing the rich juice to sate her tastes.

"Earth is supposed to be our ally, Mother," T'Pol retorted, and again, she berated herself; her control continued to miscue, and she felt shame at such failure.

"Ally," T'Les confimed, and she leaned forward in emphasis. "But Earth is _not _Vulcan. What's happened to you, T'Pol?"

_Cover.  
__Heat.  
Inhale._

_Do you know how far this has gone?__  
Just how damaged have I become?__  
And when I think I can overcome__  
the closer I get the worse it becomes!_

A dour-faced Vulcan male stood in the threshold of the courtyard, patiently waiting for T'Pol to emerge. He was young, and surprisingly chubby; he wore the uptight tunic common in Command service and the demeanor of a monotonous stooge, with all the charisma of a drab piece of furniture. _I never noticed that before,_ T'Pol admitted, and she questioned herself; _was that a Vulcan sentiment, or a human one?_

"It is agreeable to see you again, T'Pol," he said politely, dipping his head with measured precision. The gesture bespoke an exactness of movement that tolerated no impulsiveness.

"And I, you, Koss," she replied, exerting great mental effort to match the disciplined address. _It used to be so easy, _she lamented, resenting her counterpart's reflexive poise; and she lamented her resentment, and she lamented her lamentation… "Why are you here?" T'Pol asked, seeking to escape her own undying reproof.

Koss tilted his head. "The answer should be obvious," he replied.

"You've received my letters," T'Pol responded crossly, allowing her threadbare deportment to slip in gentle relief. "You know I'm not interested in marriage."

Koss' eyes affected an air of curiosity. "The decision is not ours, T'Pol," he observed. "_Everyone who is native-born must do these things in this way_. We must obey the Book of the Law."

T'Pol sucked in a sharp breath of air, nearly gagging on the parched dust. The invocation disturbed her in ways she did not expect, stirring up the bloodied opposition of discordant _emotions_; and she quelled them fiercely, rejecting the apostate thoughts of emotive idols that refused to die away before the light of Vulcan reason. _Is my mother right?_ In her years away of Vulcan—in her year away from _Vulcans_—had her understanding of Vulcan law slipped away? Was she—_tainted _by the irrationality of aliens? "What if I declare the _kal-if-fee_?" she suggested hopefully, searching her fractured mind for a _Vulcan _answer to her conundrum.

"Is that what you want?" Koss replied mildly. Vulcan marriage rites allowed the bride to call forth a challenger, compelling the groom and the _kali-tor _to engage in deadly combat for the right of the _kal'i'farr tvi-shal_. "Perhaps one of your human friends would make a suitable challenger."

"You find this amusing?" T'Pol retorted, her control slipping away in the heat of Koss' equanimity.

"Not at all," he replied, unmoving. "Call a challenger if you wish. I'll do whatever's necessary."

T'Pol hesitated, still seeking deliverance from her vows, even as her mind boiled in outrage. "You should be aware that I've been…ill," she said finally, resenting herself for making such an admission.

"I know," Koss answered, unfazed. "T'Pol, I intend to go through with this."

T'Pol's mind burned ever more strongly as she heard the words. "I don't get it!" she snapped finally, relinquishing her futile efforts of restraint. "Can't you see that I am not suitable to be a bride?"

Still unperturbed, Koss' eyes swiftly swept the courtyard of T'Les' home before he stepped aside and gestured outward. "Perhaps we should take a walk, T'Pol. There is…something more to my motives."

Centuries of training warred with the burning impulses of the child as T'Pol stood in the doorway, watching the placid expression on her mother's face as T'Les breathed in and out softly, her eyes closed and her body still. _Should I? _T'Pol wondered, feeling a lifetime of repressed uncertainty welling up in a solitary moment. _Is it my place?_

"It's difficult to mediate with you standing there," T'Les observed calmly. Her eyes remained closed, her breathing unlabored.

"You told me you were on a sabbatical," T'Pol responded accusingly, unable to halt the words flowing from her tongue. "Why didn't you tell me you were forced into retirement?"

Sighing deeply, T'Les slowly opened her eyes and arose from the mosaic tile, stretching the pause into a stillborn expression of its own. "Koss told you," she said at last, eyeing her daughter with surprising concern.

"Yes," T'Pol replied unwillingly.

"It's not entirely accurate," T'Les countered. Her gaze faltered, as if searching for a way to spare her only child. "I chose to retire."

"You were under investigation by the Security Ministry," T'Pol retorted. Her body twitched in harsh staccato. "They threatened you with prosecution."

T'Les nodded in confirmation. "I was told that if I left the Academy, they would end the inquiry."

"Did you know that they're after me as well?" T'Pol added bitterly.

T'Les' eyes expressed deep pain. "I tried to warn you, T'Pol. After the incident at P'Jem…your loyalties were questioned. And when you refused your orders to return, and went to the Delphic Expanse with the humans…many in the High Command believe that you have betrayed us."

"They couldn't reach me directly, so they went after you." T'Pol gritted her teeth, trying to arrest the spasms growing within her body. "And now that I have returned…"

"Koss' family can protect you," T'Les stated, confirming what T'Pol had learned moments earlier. "But only if you are a member of it."

_Cover.  
__Heat.  
Inhale._

_And I descend from grace__  
In arms of undertow__  
I will take my place__  
In the great below…_

"Make way!" came the bellowed shout through the doors of sickbay, scattering assorted crewmembers from the pathway. Phlox looked up with tired alarm; the constant flow of emergency patients was taxing even his patience, but he was a professional. Then he saw the injured crewmember being carried in by Crewman Billy and Ensign O'Malley.

Cradled in their four-handed lift was T'Pol.

"Bring her in!" Phlox ordered, accelerating into action. The medics, well-trained from experience, hustled to obey, not even needing the verbal orders anymore. The primary biobed was cleared by the time Billy and O'Malley reached it, and they laid T'Pol down. Or, at least, tried to.

T'Pol's body was shaking violently, quaking like a demon possessed it. Her limbs flailed about, threatening to hit anyone who stood too close, and more than once, Billy was forced to block what could have been a debilitating hit. Vulcans relied as much on the precision and speed of their blows as brute strength, but even a thrashing backhand could do a lot of damage.

"Strap her down!" Phlox ordered. He couldn't do anything while he was weaving between the hectic, jerky movements of his patient. Billy and O'Malley were promptly joined by two other medics, and it took the four of them to hold T'Pol down long enough to reach the wide restraining straps across her body, holding down her torso, her limbs, and the last one across her forehead, to prevent her from shattering the back of her head. The restraints held her down, and in place, but T'Pol's body still shuddered beneath them.

Phlox's mind ran quickly as he took in the symptoms. The seizures in her body indicated a neurological problem, and a cursory scan with his eyes indicated no obvious physical injuries—at least, nothing that could be a cause; there were already swelling welts and bruises incurred by the furious convulsions, and the obligatory collection of cuts, scrapes, and minor burns that came from working in the destroyed hulk of the _Enterprise._

"She's in neuropathic shock!" Phlox came to a diagnosis quickly, and set in course a series of protocols designed for such a situation. "Five cc's tetracaine bromide!" Seconds later, the hypospray was slapped into his waiting palm, and he injected the neurolytic agent directly into T'Pol's brainstem. "Five cc's phenylethyl amitriptyline!" The medicine appeared in Phlox's hand, and he injected it as well.

Phlox looked up at the overhead monitor. "Get the neurostatic sensors!" he ordered roughly, and within seconds, they too appeared in his waiting hands, and has Billy held T'Pol's head still, Phlox fixed the small sensors to her temples. When he glanced back up at the display, he was rewarded with an in-depth look at her brain activity.

There was a time when the report would have shocked Phlox, but that was early in his residency. Years of experience allowed his analytical skills to take precedence, and so the sight of chart-bending, erratic neurological activity failed to even faze him. "Prepare a spinal tap!" he ordered. There was a severe imbalance of something in T'Pol's neurological system, but he needed to analyze the spinal fluid to track it down.

In the meantime, T'Pol's seizures were dying off, although her breathing remained furious and volatile. The neurolytic blockers were doing their job, effectively deadening most neurological activity below the brain stem. Waiting for the results of the spinal tap, Phlox took a second to ensure that a medic was watching the lower autonomic functions closely, in case they had to shift T'Pol to machine-assisted breathing.

"Doctor!" Billy called out from a console. "The fluid analysis is ready!"

Leaving his medics to watch over T'Pol—after nine months in the Expanse, they were well-trained and heavily experienced—Phlox trotted over to join Billy. The list of compounds ran into the hundreds; Vulcan neurology was not simple. Phlox ran down it with a finger, murmuring as he went, comparing every compound to his memorized charts for Vulcans.

His finger stopped when he hit something that shouldn't be present. "N-acetyl-p-benzo-quinone imine," he breathed softly. It was not a natural compound for a Vulcan, and the concentration was incredible. "Billy," Phlox said, thinking as he went, "run a Vulcan metabolite regression on NAPQI."

"Doctor!" O'Malley shouted behind him as simultaneous sirens went off. Phlox wheeled around and ran back to the biobed, his mind already moving to the immediate problem. It only took one glance at the monitors to confirm his suspicions: T'Pol had gone into cardiac arrest.

_Cover.  
Heat.  
Inhale._

_And just for the record__  
just so you know__  
I did not believe__  
that I could sink so low._

Outside, the _Enterprise _drifted through space, its jerky movements dictated by the venting gases from all over the ship. Massive holes sliced through the saucer section, exposing the interior to the unforgiving clench of space, and the Xindi ships danced around, delivering the death blows with gleeful precision. Scorch marks streaked the hull, and bodies shot outwards as new conduits ruptured and the hull plating buckled.

Hoshi lurched across her post, holding the console for dear life, as wave after wave of explosions pummeled the bridge. No artificial light was left; every monitor, every console, every siren and every alert was powered down or blown up. But the bridge did not suffer in darkness; the harsh glow of fire lit up every corner, illuminating the death throes of the once-great starship.

T'Pol, sitting immobile in the command chair, looked around her as the last vestiges of Starfleet burned. Her senses slowed down, cursing her with the pain of watching the flames leap in slow motion as they raced to devour the _Enterprise. _Her crew was broken, laying on the deck, in positions natural and unnatural; far to one side, she noticed Travis working the controls for an escape pod.

The pain behind T'Pol's eyes burned with the same intensity as she watched it end.

_Cover.  
Heat.  
Inhale._

_Now doesn't that make you feel better?__  
The wraiths have won tonight  
__You can't take this away from me  
And everything is all right._

_Cover.  
__Heat.  
Inhale._

_Fade out._

* * *

_Fade in._

_Bind.  
Tap.  
Inject._

_Bind.  
Tap.  
Inject._

The Vulcan ship was broken, bereft, and boreal, battered with a thousand chinks and protracted gashes that vented gases and distended the crippled wreck with the sensation of convulsive breath.

"Main power's offline," Malcolm reported as he sifted the data from raw sensor flows scrolling across his console. His lips thinned unnaturally as the shuttlepod drew closer, framing the _Seleya _in the front window; the dark grimness with which it drifted, against the cadaverous backdrop of shattered rock, gave rise to a ghoulish image of noose and gallows.

"Can you get a read on their structural integrity?" Archer asked, sending the question over his right shoulder. The captain's eyes remained glued on the navigational readouts, but the tautness in his muscles was only partially due to the crashing asteroids scant meters away; the specter of the ghost ship was unnerving, even for a veteran of space.

Malcolm responded a beat later. "Their hull's taking quite a beating," he answered. "But atmospheric pressure is still within tolerance. It's low," he added, leaning in over the glow of his monitor. "And decks twelve and thirteen—make that thirteen and fourteen—have decompressed."

"Any life signs?" Corporal Hawkins chipped in for the first time. He, too, was no stranger to the perils of deep space, nor the myriad ways in which the cosmos claimed its victims; but the sheer coldness of the drifting ship charged his spine with the gripping prick of a hundred needles.

"Multiple biosigns," T'Pol replied. She alone seemed to be unbothered by the deathly spectacle. "Several of the readings are fluctuating."

Without comment, Archer opened the comm channel. "This is Captain Archer of the Earth starship _Enterprise._" His declaration was firm, but his voice seemed to echo in the open channel. "Come in, _Selaya._ To anyone on the _Seleya, _please respond." A nasty hiss, nearly audible in words, greeted him. "Repeat, this is Captain Archer of the _Enterprise._"

"No response, sir," Malcolm confirmed. It was perhaps unnecessary, but his lips were nearly white; and the sibilant sound of whispering noises was sending the lieutenant into cold trepidation.

Archer grunted once. "The starboard docking port is still intact," T'Pol replied, picking up the cue. "We should be able to establish a firm lock."

"Make sure you're strapped in," Archer rejoined. As the three others scrambled to check their restraints, the captain gently nudged the shuttlepod in, trying to match the unsteady dance of the drifting ship.

_Bind.  
Tap.  
Inject._

_I am the voice inside your head__  
and I control you__  
I am the lover in your bed__  
and I control you_

In defiance of the coldness outside, the air inside the _Selaya _was hot and heavy, possessing a still and suffocating weight that settled upon the boarding party with a palpable, spine-tingling charge of unsettling disquietude.

Malcolm led the way, shimmying through a half-jammed hatchway in pitch blackness before emerging through the floor of a deck, plasma rifle first. The captain came next, then T'Pol, and Hawkins brought up the rear.

The electric charge in the gravid air shot through T'Pol's nerves, hacking its way in past a lifetime of learned responses and mental disciplines as it preyed on her. Around her, the once-familiar corridors had taken on a ghoulish surrealism; murky blackness was streaked with slender bolts of light, gleaming in pallid shades of red and blue that rapidly suffocated in the night air. Here and there, the scant luster of anemic glow formed on metallic conduits, casting off a lurid display of jagged grills and fractured lattices. Between, the despondent pallor remained unseen, except where it illuminated clouds of dust with feeble, sickly coruscation.

T'Pol shuddered involuntarily as she strived, vainly, to control the unease that threatened to disenchain her repose. The _Seleya _was in constant flux, shifting not with the smoothness of normality, but rather with the erratic jolts of a spastic strobe as panels continued to flash on and off. In the flashes, interspersed between moments of permeating dark, she could make out the wrecked remains of a starship; shattered bulkheads, broken beams, the ash and dust and debris of a thousand explosions in miniature, all highlighted with the unnatural blaze of artificial lightning.

T'Pol narrowed her eyes carefully as she sought to adapt to the pulsating effect. In the cadaverous light and radiant dust, something seemed malformed, as if the _Selaya_ was bizarrely deformed; with concentrated focus, she began to identify macabre signs of unnatural changes, damage that should not have occurred, wreckage that had no discernable source.

"Captain!" Malcolm called out. Only meters away, his voice seemed tinny and distant, as if transmitting across a canyon.

"What is it, Lieutenant?" Archer responded, stepping through the shadows to investigate. T'Pol followed, carefully timing her strides to match the strobes; unsettled debris shifted position in the blackness, thus confining her to those scarce flashes of illumination.

"They were lining this bulkhead with trellium," Malcolm reported a moment later. The UV attachment on his rifle scope highlighted the insulation material plastered on to a bulkhead. "They didn't get very far, although."

T'Pol's head darted around, shifting rapidly to locate the movement behind her; but she saw nothing in the opaque darkness.

"I am reading biosigns," T'Pol reported a beat later as her mind shifted back. The furrow of her brows was unseen in the flaccid glow of her scanner. "They are on this deck, but I cannot isolate them any further."

Archer nodded for no one to see. "Malcolm, you take starboard," he ordered. "Hawkins, you're with him."

With quiet confirmation, the two men departed, making their way down a corridor flashing with white sparks and couched in heavy smoke.

_Bind.  
Tap.  
Inject._

_I take you where you want to go__  
and I control you__  
I drag you down I use you up__  
and I control you!_

Unsurprisingly, emergency bulkheads were in place.

_This wouldn't be so difficult, _Archer thought, sweating heavily from the combined effects of stagnant heat and arduous exertion, _if I was Vulcan._ It was a rare sentiment for him, and one he would never admit to the slender Vulcan woman accompanying him; but his trapezius muscles were screaming with pain as he forced the hatchway open.

T'Pol slipped through first, wedging her body within the hatch to further leverage it wide, thus allowing the captain to grunt with aching relief. The compartment beyond was nearly pitch-black, and the muggy air within hit them like a steam bath as it rushed to the now-open vent; nonetheless, as Archer took one step, then two, into the lugubrious room, he could feel a torrent of sweat running down his spine.

Eyes gradually adjusted as they made their way through the compartment; the surfeit of irregular, flaring sparks allowed tinctures of darkness to emerge, stretching from the absolute black of unlit holes to the shadow-lit luminosity cast here and there, shining through the open doorway behind them. Snake-like appendages dangled from the ceiling, adding a sense of tangled labyrinth; and always, heavy and dank air hung about them, coating the new strangers in the fetid aromas of necrotic flesh.

"That way," Archer whispered, directing his Vulcan companion with the trajectory of his voice. A clanging sound—semiregular staccato noises—resonated from the foot of a side corridor, down at the base of the Stygian blackness. Quashing his own discomfort, Archer led the way, moving only a foot at a time as he navigated the jungle-like maze of dangling hoses and crashed support beams.

"One biosign," T'Pol confirmed, scanning beyond the next hatchway. The readings seemed odd, but there were countless potential reasons.

"It's stuck," Archer noted, but this time the answer involved brains; noting the still-functional control panel, T'Pol punched in an emergency code, triggering the doors to release.

_JUMP!_

Propelled by muscular force, an iron bar crashed through the open entrance, nearly bashing T'Pol even as her instincts drove her backwards; the bar impacted the hatchway frame with a cannon-like burst of noise. T'Pol could scarcely look up in the rumbling discharge, but she forced down the mental pain and sought to locate the aggressor.

The other being was already through the hatchway, moving with preternatural speed as the bar swung around again, clocking Archer on the left shoulder. The captain tumbled to the deck, leaving the assailant clearly visible for a split second.

_It's Vulcan! _T'Pol realized with horror. Her heels scrapped against the deck as she tried, vainly, to crawl backwards; away from the monstrosity before her. It was no ordinary Vulcan; its face was hollow, with sharp, protruding bones; deep-set eyes glared out malevolently from beneath still-bushy eyebrows, with a maniacal glow that seemed to slice the air. The Vulcan's skin was blanched, and the ghastly creature looked like something raised from _bogozh._

T'Pol scrambled away as her fear became acute, leaving the captain to fend, momentarily, on his own; a mighty backhand, coming from this emaciated being, through Archer to the deck plating just as T'Pol reached the wall. With little other ideas, she raised her phase pistol and fired; it drilled the aggressor in the chest, staggering him for a moment.

_It's not enough!_ Her instincts screamed for flight, to take off from this unholy abomination before it overtook her, but T'Pol found she could not run. Before her, the rogue raised her bar, clearly meaning to wallop T'Pol with enough force to knock her out.

Desperately, T'Pol lashed out with her left foot, striking the berserk Vulcan mid-body. It staggered him again, buying crucial seconds; and in that slim window, Archer recovered. He, too, drilled the attacker mid-torso, but the second shot was more successful than the first.

The Vulcan assailant fell to the ground, unconscious.

_Bind.  
Tap.  
Inject._

_I am the prayers of the naive__  
and I control you__  
I am the lie that you believe__  
and I control you_

"What the _hell_?" Archer growled, staggering back to his feet. He shook his head, trying to clear the shock of the sudden attack. "T'Pol!" he called out, then with concern: "T'Pol? You all right?"

Her balance swirling before her, T'Pol reached out desperately, her hand landing on a bulkhead for support. She didn't know why—couldn't know why—her mind was fogging over, as if a suffocating cloak had fallen upon her. She heard the question, as a faint sound echoing from far away, somewhere in the distance of reality; it repeated in her head, twice, three times, four, until the sounds finally resolved themselves into words.

"I'm…I'm fine," T'Pol replied, although the veil of darkness was nearly complete. She struggled to focus, but it brought only a piercing pain that obliterated her thoughts, and she fell backwards, into the captain's arms.

The captain's voice remained a dim echo, heard only across a gulf of space and time. "T'Pol, can you hear me?"

She repeated the phrase in her head, forcing the dissonant sounds to come together in words. "Yes," she gasped out, unable to form a longer word. She was floating for a moment; then, with great relief, felt the firm support of a bulkhead behind her. She closed her eyes, easing the spiral of light and darkness, surrendering her balance to the unyielding support of the wall.

Dimly, T'Pol felt something moving about her waist, like a snake wrapping itself about her; and she moved to recoil from the intruder, her mind screaming in agony as critical seconds elapsed, the neural signals sluggish in reaching her body. An unfamiliar feeling of panic surged up within as she tried to refocus, tried to push the crucial commands through the quicksand of her muscles, and the uncontrollable urge to flee warred with an unresponsive body.

Archer's voice again intruded through the thickened darkness. "His synaptic pathways have been severely damaged," the captain said, and T'Pol imagined the captain hunched over the body with a mediscanner; belatedly, she realized that the snake about her waist had been her colleague fumbling with her tool belt. "Let's get him back to the pod," Archer added, and T'Pol focused on his voice, using it to stabilize the spiraling vertigo of her mind.

"Shit!" Archer barked, and now T'Pol's instincts screamed loudly; once-dormant neurons crashed through her with fury, lighting up every extremity with instinctual movement. She watched herself, from a vantage point high and away, as she leapt and twirled gracefully in midair, drawing her phase pistol and aiming down the sputtering corridor.

Two more members of the one-time crew staggered down the hallway, their movements jerky and unrefined in the strobbing light of broken circuits that punctured the darkness. In those scarce seconds—the fractions of time when the darkness gave way to the lightened freeze-frame of St. Elmo's fire—the assailants could be seen. Their clothing was torn and stained; their injuries were several and severe, with untreated gashes and crusted blood easily visible, but the Vulcans paid it no heed.

Each wielded a section of pipe, holding them high like trophy weapons, over eyes that sparkled with the unhinged fire of derangement. The beings showed no sign of intelligence, no hint of awareness to separate them from the beasts, save for their maniacal focus on the two intruders.

Archer fired a bolt of green lightning, striking one Vulcan mid-torso, but the assailant kept his feet. Lurching forward, its focus never changed, even as T'Pol saw fire erupt from the barrel of her own weapon. It finished off their assailant, tossing him to the deck plating, from whence he did not arise; and methodically, the two officers drilled the second assailant as well.

With barely a pause, Archer flipped open his communicator. "Archer to Reed!" he called out harshly, still watching the insensate creatures before them.

Reed's voice crackled back a moment later. "Go ahead, sir."

"Have you come across any of the crew yet?" Archer asked. His pistol remained pointed at the two bodies adorning the deck.

"Not yet," Reed replied promptly.

"Don't approach them," Archer warned fiercely. "I repeat: _do not _approach them. They've suffered some sort of brain damage." The captain shuddered slightly. "They're like Vulcan zombies."

_Bind.  
Tap.  
Inject._

_I am the needle in your vein__  
and I control you__  
I am the high you can't sustain__  
and I control you_

"Aye, sir," Malcolm acknowledged. He was a trained officer, and officers did not question orders in the middle of a crisis situation, no matter how strange those orders were; although privately, he wondered if the heavy darkness and flickering lights were spooking—

The powerful _oomph_ yanked Malcolm into alarm, and he spun around, his senses running rapidly. _There! _ Reed's mind screamed, and the barrel of his rifle followed automatically, but he stayed himself from pulling the trigger. Hawkins was on the ground, grappling with a berserk attacker.

Before his shot cleared, Malcolm's instincts screamed again, and he whirled about, raising the rifle's butt like a blunt sword; at the peak of its force, it clipped another Vulcan beneath the chin, sending the attacker reeling backwards. _Where did it come from?_ Malcolm thought frantically, trying to isolate the shadows in the corridor; but he could see nothing in them, not even in the shadows behind him.

A movement down the hallway caught Malcolm's eyes, and his rifle automatically shifted to match his gaze; _there_, he recognized, a body was stepping into a flickering light. It moved in spasmodic fashion, as if lacking in motor control, and it wielded a make-shift club in prime attack posture. Malcolm fired once, then twice, and the beast hit the deck with a clatter.

Behind him, Malcolm heard the repeating blasts of Hawkins' rifle, and the thud of another body on the deck plates; he assumed it was the Vulcan, and Malcolm focused forward, sweeping the corridor with the tip of his rifle. A sixth sense told him that Hawkins was now on his feet, doing the same to the rear.

Malcolm saw movement again, and not hesitating this time, he squeezed the trigger of his rifle repeatedly, sending out packet after packet of high-energy plasma. In those brief spurts of light, the hallway was illuminated, revealing two humanoid forms in the eerie glow; these two, as well, carried chunks of debris as weapons. Malcolm crept backwards as he fired, yielding ground until the two assailants collapsed.

Behind him, Hawkins had just finished off one berserker when a sharp pain hit, nearly knocking the young man to the floor; he spun around, bringing himself face to face with the putrid flesh of another berserker. Hawkins ducked backwards, involuntarily retreating from the stench.

The berserker fell to the deck, his flesh charred from behind.

"Lieutenant! You okay?" Archer shouted out, emerging from the dark corridor. Commander T'Pol followed behind, clearly worse for the wear; she staggered about like the berserkers, lurching from side-to-side with no sense of Vulcanoid grace, and she spoke not a word.

"What happened to them?" Reed said, sucking in fetid air. He hunched over, trying to ease his own vertigo as he replenished his breath.

"Seven more," Archer announced tersely. He held a scanner aloft, pointed down the corridor. "That direction, maybe thirty meters."

Malcolm straightened up with a deep breath. "Let's clear out," he suggested firmly, allowing well-honed tactical instincts to lead him.

"Do it," Archer ordered, and they fell into a retreating row, with T'Pol leaning on Hawkins for balance.

_Bind.  
Tap.  
Inject._

_I am the silencing machine__  
and I control you__  
I am the end of all your dreams__  
and I control you_

"We're from a Starfleet ship!" Archer announced firmly, and T'Pol imagined that she could see the captain standing tall and strong. Her vision was blurry, as if severely unfocused, and the dwindling world about her existed only in shades of light and dark; hazy glows and dim shadows that were merely amorphous blobs, their unknown composition increasing her panic to nearly overwhelming levels. It took her complete control—and the molasses effect of sluggish muscles—to not turn and run, sprinting down the corridor in terror-filled recklessness.

"We're humans! We're from Earth!" Archer added, and his voice twinkled dissonantly in T'Pol's mind, as if striking an errant crystal. Her eyes were blind, but in her mind, T'Pol could see the two berserkers standing before them; two crazed Vulcans, momentarily still, blocking the pathway to the airlock. Beyond them lay salvation, the peace and serenity of open spaces and white clouds, but the image rapidly vanished; her mind jumped tracks, now depicting the hollowed faces of their enemies, skeletal and pallid.

"Do you understand me?" Archer shouted, and the words barely registered in T'Pol's mind. She registered only a harsh spike of trepidation, and her body rapidly accelerated beyond her control, spinning about as she slapped a control panel.

Bulkhead doors slammed shut in front of them, blocking off not just the two berserkers, but the airlock as well.

"Is there another way to the airlock?" Malcolm shouted. Rumbling sounds echoing upward through the ship threatened to drown his voice.

"No!" Archer replied, consulting the map on the scanner. "But we're not staying here! Move it!"

T'Pol felt the presence of more berserkers as they appeared, blocking the path of retreat; Reed and Hawkins swiftly shifted to point, leveling their rifles and unleashing blast after blast of scorching plasma. It was no time for care, no time for delicacy; errant packets of energy burned into the walls, erupting in clouds of heated smoke, highlighting the blackened forms of the Vulcan crew.

Each berserker was struck, once, twice, several times, as they staggered forward, seemingly oblivious to the potent effects until they finally keeled over onto the deck. Makeshift weapons clattered on the plating, and as the Starfleet team advanced, they took care to avoid the twitching bodies of convulsing muscles; T'Pol tried once to administer a neck pinch, but her fingers fumbled uncontrollably, unable to stay on the nerve clusters.

A running firefight ensued. The _Selaya_'s complement was 147, and T'Pol could offer no estimate as to how many were still alive. The low-level telepathy of Vulcans could normally sense the rough presence of others, but her mind was screaming with pain; she was being berated with the deranged rabidity of unbalanced minds, lost in the psychotic frenzy of seething emotions and frothing deficiencies.

She could see it inside her, as though faces of ghosts that cackled with effervescent glee, the burning sensation at once terrifying and liberating. The promise of chaos, the delight of pain, the relief of a thousand blood-stained minds tired of the quiet desperation; and all she could think, and all she could feel, was twisted malevolence enraptured with unrestrained lust.

And as T'Pol staggered along with her comrades, she could close her eyes, and feel everything slipping away.

_Bind.  
Tap.  
Inject._

_The farther I fall I'm beside you__  
as lost as I get I will find you__  
the deeper the wound I'm inside you__  
forever and ever I'm a part of you_

_Bind.  
Tap.  
Inject._

_Fade out._

* * *

_Fade in._

_Hello.  
Hello.  
Hello._

_Relax.  
__Relax.  
Relax._

In the heat of the midday fires, an unlikely wind blew across the scoured expanses of flatland, blasting clear the minutiae of sand and wearing down the surface of the rock, eroding it layer by minuscule layer. A true _khamsin _wind, not just warm but suffocatingly hot, it whistled and howled as it starved the desert of breath and drove the remnants of life into hidden shelter; it burned hot upon even the hardiest of beings, threatening to immolate anything that moved within its path.

And whipped up in the fury of the _khamsin _wind was the sand and dust ripped from the desert bed, a swirling dervish of derangement and wrath, erasing the bittersweet skies behind towering walls, as vast as the endless wastelands of barren infecundity and taller than the highest mountains! The horizon disappeared behind the yellow-gray clouds of achromatic hue, reducing vastness to nothingness in the blink of an eye.

The unfortunate being that did not hide, convinced that there was still time before the racing edge of the bone-dry gale, choked and fainted in the blinding walls of sand, dying a quickened death in asphyxiating dust! Breath vanished, ripped from the air and replaced with grit and powder, swirling within the scorching heat of Vulcan's bellows.

And grains of sand, whipped into violent frenzy by the tempest, tearing into the toughest of flesh with the ease of a multi-tailed whip! It tore across the blasted plains, driving jagged lines deep into the once-hard bedrock, exposing the virgin strata below to the crucible above. It tore into unprotected buildings, forcing its way through the slightest of cracks, and the ionic disturbances disrupted protective fields, reducing the best-prepared shelters to dust-laden kilns.

Deep within the bowels of Mount Tihet'es-rasath-tukh, T'Pol knelt before a solitary candle, its flame barely luminous in the dark cloister of her enclosure. The room—a rough-hewn cavern worn smooth with time—was scarcely larger than a recessed niche, something of which the initiated paid no heed; the masters of _kahr'y'tan_ moved through such transient boundaries as if they were merely a veil.

"Look at the light," T'dahsu instructed. She sat across from T'Pol, distantly illuminated in the penumbra of the dancing flame; her legs were crossed, and she sat straight, aligning the elements within. "See only the light."

"See only the light," T'Pol murmured, repeating the mantra. "See only the light."

"Open your eyes," T'dahsu added, keeping her voice soft and firm. She watched the flame, and saw beyond it, watching for the signs that would soon appear. "Do not force yourself into the light, T'Pol. Open your eyes and let it wash over you."

"See only the light," T'Pol repeated, easing herself back. Her mind wanted to focus, to bring its surface concentration to bear on the flame; and T'Pol let go of the urge, cleansing her mind of its compression. Her vision blurred, and the light grew before her in unrefined splendor.

"Let your thoughts go," T'dahsu continued. "What do you see?"

"I see a light," T'Pol whispered as her eyes closed, and her eyes opened. "I see a haze of white light, shining into the darkness that surrounds it." As she spoke, T'Pol withdrew further, and the light grew before her. "I am prepared."

T'dahsu emitted a wave of bemusement. "You have barely begun," she countered, her voice bearing no reprobation. "Your _pach'te _has burrowed its way deep, and surrenders one layer in order to hide another."

T'Pol felt a surge of animosity, momentarily dimming the light before her; and she pushed it aside, forcing it into the margins of darkness. "Then what is the next step?" she countered instead, struggling to subdue the peevishness that had risen to take animosity's place.

"First we must understand why you are here," T'dahsu murmured.

"I have already told you," T'Pol replied. "The doctors in Shi'Kahr were unable to repair…my damage. My emotions threaten to take over me." The light shrunk as she spoke, the shadow of darkness creeping inward.

"Is that all?" T'dahsu queried. Her mind tickled T'Pol's, sensing the curtailment that had splintered the woman's mind. "You must purge yourself, my sister, before we can begin."

"The doctors…" T'Pol instinctively slid her tongue between two molars, clamping down hard. "They refused to conduct any invasive treatment," she continued, her words muffled. "They did not want to contract my Pa'Nar Syndrome." T'dahsu heard the bitterness, but uttered no remark; the words were ephemeral, and they took the liberated acrimony as they vanished into the chimera.

T'Pol's eyes snapped open, revealing the solitary flame. "I am here because logic failed me."

_Breath.  
Breath.  
Breath._

_Crucified__  
after all I've died__  
after all I've tried__  
you are still inside._

A single candle flame flickered before T'Pol, sending quivering flares of light about the harsh sterility of her quarters; polished metallic gleans reflected the solitary glow amid the peripheral darkness, accentuating the timeless stillness of the burning fire, itself a lonesome hermit in the seclusion of darkened nothingness. She sat, kneeling, before the candle, her face barely visible in the flush of halo.

"A mind-meld?" she asked quizzically, examining her companion through the effulgent illumination of the flame. The term sounded familiar to her, as if dredged from some long-forgotten memory in the dimmest banks of time; but the words were foreign to her tongue, as if an alien concept from a hostile world in the distant abroad.

"A mind-meld," Sa'hat repeated, speaking as if possessed of great familiarity. "The _kash-hohv,_" he added, gracing his companion with a soft smile as he spoke the words in Old High Vulcan. "It loses something in the translation."

T'Pol frowned in her mind as curiosity warred with caution. "What is this…_kash-nohv_?" she replied slowly, tripping over the unfamiliar shapes of the word.

"It's an ancient discipline," Sa'hat replied. "Common in the days of Surak, but the knowledge has since been lost…except for a handful of us who still preserve its mystery. We've discovered that it opens our mind to hidden possibilities. It can help us access our _emotions, _T'Pol," Sa'hat added quietly, yet speaking with great fervor.

"How does it work?" T'Pol asked. She eyed the young man carefully; he was barely into his prime, but seemed possessed with the certitude of a lifetime spent in quiet contemplation.

"I'd begin by creating a telepathic link," Sa'hat answered, and he ghosted a smile as T'Pol stiffened. "Telepathy is neither good nor bad, T'Pol; in the hands of the foolish, it can do great damage, but a learned mind can use it to bring about knowledge and insight."

"And the sharing of information?" T'Pol questioned uncomfortably, her feet beginning to twitch beneath her. "Would you be able to read my mind? Or can I choose what I reveal?"

"Your mind is young," Sa'hat admitted. "I can't be certain, but it is unlikely that you will be able to maintain your walls of privacy—at first." He leaned forward slightly, his eyes piercing through the flare of light. "But withholding yourself deprives you of the full experience, T'Pol. In the _kash-nohv_, we share our memories, our thoughts, our experiences and our wonderment. It _is _profoundly intimate," he allowed, shifting slightly. "But once you experience the direct communion, you will understand."

T'Pol shifted backward, echoing the movement of her counterpart.

Sa'hat raised an eyebrow. "If you'd like, we could try a more traditional form of guided meditation," he suggested, his tone disheartened. "But it wouldn't be nearly as effective. To find the answers you seek, we must reunite the two parts of your sundered mind, and that cannot be done through meditation alone."

T'Pol bristled. "What makes you say that I seek answers?" she demanded, displeased with the back-handed disparagement.

Sa'hat shrugged. "_You _invited _me _here, T'Pol," he rejoined. "Whether you chose to admit it or not, you seek something that you believe I have. And your mind _is _troubled; I can sense it, even without a meld."

T'Pol felt a new heat smoldering within her. "I have yet to meditate this evening," she snapped, her poise faltering before the fire. "Perhaps that is what you're sensing."

Sa'hat rose to his knees as if to leave. "If that is what you think, T'Pol, then attend to your meditation; and we'll see how you are in the morning."

"Stay," T'Pol growled, feeling a wave of self-revulsion as she spoke, fueling herself into contradictory defiance. "You and your colleagues have chosen a reckless path."

Sa'hat tilted his head in interest. "Have we?" we replied, challenging her to substantiate the allegation.

"History has shown that Vulcans who attempt to embrace their emotions often revert to their primal nature," she retorted, struggling to keep her voice even. The room seemed warm, even by Vulcan standards, as if the solitary candle was nourishing a fire.

"Your logic is flawed," Sa'hat countered, his own countenance kept in peace. "One: your argument speaks of raising emotion above reason, whereas we speak of balancing our reason with emotion, and two: the evidentiary basis is myth, not fact. Even Vulcan history has been written by the victors, T'Pol. The history taught by the Temple is little more than the echo of propaganda from five thousand years ago."

T'Pol growled softly, her temper stoked in the aura of the flame, but it was a growl of self-rebuke; for she knew what she would do, and that all the logic she possessed would not thwart the intense desire within. "Proceed," she commanded, speaking through gritted teeth.

Sa'hat nodded slowly, and gently laid his right hand on the side of T'Pol's face; for a moment, the dangling sleeve of his robe obscured the candlelight, but it reappeared within a beat. "It's all right," he murmured softly, and T'Pol nodded, her body still tense. Sa'hat's fingers traced her face, falling into place on her cheek bone and jaw. "It's all right," he repeated. "Close your eyes. Breathe deeply, T'Pol. Try to focus on my voice."

Holding herself still, T'Pol resisted the urge to nod in acknowledgment, and she focused all her senses on his voice; it sounded in her ears, and it vibrated against her skin. In a flight of fancy, she imagined that it existed as a form, and it tasted of spicy _plomeek_; and the form disappeared as she plunged within, the surface giving way to the endless depths within.

"You're still resisting," Sa'hat noted quietly. His voice remained even, carrying a soothing calm. "Relax, T'Pol. Let go of your resistance."

T'Pol released her lifeline, allowing herself to fall into the swirling light of darkness.

_Sick.  
Sick.  
Sick._

_Ocean pulls me close__  
And whispers in my ear__  
The destiny I've chose__  
All becoming clear._

T'Pol's world shrunk around her, fading out until it encompassed her mind, and nothing beyond. It zeroed in about her, like a funnel; her vision glazed over as movement became fixed, unbending, unyielding to the demands of the universe. Sounds diminished, like the throaty whisper of a dying stream; her thoughts slowed, became disjointed, as if jumping from one to the next, instead of flowing smoothly down a well-worn path. A part of T'Pol recognized that she was bobbing and weaving in her chair, her movements uncontrolled and unbidden, but a greater part failed to recognize that she even had a body.

The sounds around her intruded dimly into T'Pol's shrunken world, echoing faintly. _"It was that last run through the cloaking barrier." "The coil assembly's been damaged." "Reduce speed."_ If T'Pol concentrated, she could place an identity with each voice; but the face was there, and then gone, with the herky-jerky discontinuity of her mind. _"Hold at half impulse." "Lieutenant, are you alright?" "I'm fine, damnit." "T'Pol?" "T'Pol?" "T'POL, ANSWER ME!"_

With a jolt, T'Pol snapped out of her trance, and found Travis and Malcolm standing over her. Looks of concern and near-panic were etched into both faces, and Mayweather held a medical scanner aloft, taking the Vulcan's vital readings.

"T'Pol!" Malcolm repeated, shaking her by the shoulders. "Are you alright, Commander?"

_There's a difficult question, _T'Pol thought. _AM I alright? What IS alright? I'm damaged—I know that._

"No, I am not alright," she whispered, causing Malcolm to lean in closer. "I should be removed from the command structure." Her logic warred to restore a sense of order to her chemical-addled brain.

"T'Pol, look at me." Malcolm knelt down in front of her, bringing himself eyelevel with the commander. "You went into some sort of seizure, or trance, or something. Are you back with us?"

_No, _she thought wildly. _No, I'm not. _She struggled to focus; she tried to send laser-like darts of thought through her circuit paths. "I am not here," she whispered. "And Hawkins is not here."

Malcolm glanced up at Travis with concern. "No, Commander," he answered. "Hawkins was killed in the Sphere. Remember?"

And T'Pol remembered.

She remembered him dying.

She remembered the mental scream of pain that shot through her diminished protections. She remembered the agony of being disintegrated, atom by atom. She remembered the intense panic, the realization that she would never see her family again. _Wait—that HE would never see HIS family again_. She remembered freezing up as the last bolt of fire consumed his body, the pain overwhelming her. It was only her intense training that allowed her to subconsciously move, run to the shuttlepod, and escape. _I have to get distance. I have to get distance. I have to get distance!_

"Don't worry, Commander," Travis said softly. "We'll get you home."

_Pain.  
Pain.  
Pain._

_Now you know__  
this is what it feels like!__  
And now you know__  
this is what it feels like!_

Beneath the arching skies, colored in ocher and flame, the vast lava plains give way to broken hinterlands of jutting peaks, shooting upward in a dizzying array of minarets and spires; towering pinnacles of petrified lava once embedded within mountains of rock standing sentinel over a jagged landscape, riven with shaded ravines mired in quenching heat.

Even in the twilight of the day, the Vulcan desert blazed with the iridescence of sun-fire. From the tips of the soaring lava plugs, burnished in wind-worn basalt shimmering in the dimming light of Nevasa. Crepuscular rays—partially obscured behind these pinnacled sentries—diverged outward, as if a hundred rays of a hundred crowns, suffusing the blushing skies with dazzling colors of incandescent light set against deepening skies of coral and amber.

T'Pol stretched her ears into the distance, straining to hear the slightest hint of life surviving within the vast wastelands of Vulcan, but not even a _ravot _fly stirred its wings in the receding conflagration. Darkness was already asserting itself deep within the slicing depths of wretched chasms, offering only scant relief from the sea of flame that continued to torch the surface; only in the late hours of the night, when the incendiary air tapered with momentary comfort, would life again stir on the surface of the desert.

"What existed before the dawn?" T'dahsu asked at last, breaking the stagnant silence that existed between the two women.

"Chaos," T'Pol answered by rote. Her gaze was fastened across the horizon; inner eyelids protected her from the malevolent rays of scintillating light dancing across the seared vista.

T'dahsu lifted a solitary eyebrow. "And what is Chaos?" she questioned, pressing for a more-developed answer.

T'Pol held her answer for a sojourn, allowing the memories of a childhood to percolate within. "It is a state of unknowing," she said finally, dimly quoting from ancient analects. Her mind's eye squinted as it sought to peer through the layers of time and torture. "It is the great abyss. It is the projection of the psyche, the externalization of being, conscious of its separation yet not knowing its origin."

"Indeed," T'dahsu said, expressing neither satisfaction nor discontent; her face remained immobile, stonier than the scoured landscape before them, one eyebrow still frozen above the other. "And from whence came chaos?" she asked.

T'Pol followed along, recalling the philosophical catechisms set down in days long past. "Seeing the ineffable light of being, yet unable to grasp it, psyche's desire was externalized; it was unconscious of its missing essence, and fell into the unlimited depths. Blind and ignorant, desire formed into the _pach'te_, the lower mind."

"You do well, T'Pol," T'dahsu observed lightly, breaking her stoic expression with the bemusement of a patient teacher. "You speak the words with the precision of a trained probationer. Yet do you understand the breadth of the meaning?"

T'Pol shook slightly in irritation. "Of course I do," she retorted, feeling the fire burning beneath her flesh.

"And yet you express emotion," T'dahsu countered airily, attaching no reprobation. "Emotion of an almost _human _nature."

"Emotion is of a Vulcan nature as well," T'Pol rejoined, and she mentally kicked herself; she had walked into a simplistic trap. "All emotion stems from that fundamental desire, lost in the darkness of the abyss. As it stumbles in blindness, desire stirs the abyss and forms chaos; yet desire abhors chaos, which is the opposite of knowledge, and the antithesis of logic."

The screeching cry of a _shavokh _sang high above. The leathery bird rode the contrails of heat as they ascended, scaling far above the shattered, burnt rocks; with a graceful twist, it glided across the skies, the first sight of the evening's life. Later, under the scarce respite of night, the desert's solitary denizens would emerge; but only the most foolhardy challenged the daytime furnace.

"Blinded to the light above him, _E'shua _looked about, seeing only himself; and in his supreme arrogance, he believed that he alone existed. But being the external embodiment of desire, _E'shua _sought more."

T'dahsu remained silent, so T'Pol continued. "For the primary ego was alone; _E'shua _wanted to share the glory of his existence with others, but could find none. And thus, from the chaos, he created the universe and all its beings. But no creation can surpass its creator; the universe dwelt in chaos and ignorance, eternally hidden within the veil of darkness."

"But psyche saw what she had begat, and repented of her actions." T'dahsu's voice was relaxed and easy, whereas T'Pol was tense and strained. "Light and psyche reunited; existence and awareness, being and thought. And psyche devoted herself to saving the ignorant offspring of _E'Shua_; together, the father and the mother implanted a spark of life within the lower beings."

"But a spark must be nurtured before the light can extinguish the darkness," T'Pol continued. "And so the father and the mother sent emissaries, imbued with knowledge to kindle the fire."

"And when _E'shua _saw this, he realized that he was not the supreme being after all; and he was filled with hatred at the parents who sought to take his offspring from him. In his spurned wrath, he sought to destroy his own offspring by binding them in ignorance and fear of their true pedigree so that they, too, would forever dwell in the wretchedness of chaos.

"And thus began the battle between logic and emotion."

_Home.  
Home.  
Home._

_The currents have their say__  
the time is drawing near__  
washes me away__  
makes me disappear.  
_

Even the lighting in sickbay had been powered down in the effort to salvage as many crucial systems as possible. It caused few problems for Phlox; Denobulans have excellent vision in the dark, but he knew that the subdued lighting was causing problems for his human medics. At the same time, it was helping his human patients rest; _you win some and you lose some,_ the physician thought wryly.

He was checking a blood test when the doors of sickbay slid open. He was a little shocked to see T'Pol enter, and his mind shot to attention, wondering what the problem was; then it dawned on him that _he _had missed their last scheduled check-up. He rubbed his face briskly, trying to increase the blood flow; Denobulans required far less rest than humans, and it wasn't like him to forget appointments due to simple exhaustion.

"You're busy," T'Pol said abruptly, and promptly turned to leave. "I'll come back."

"No, no, Commander, come in," Phlox said, waving the Vulcan into sickbay. "Have a—" he glanced around at the occupied biobeds, until his gaze fell on the console chair. "Have a seat," he finished, gesturing to it. "I apologize for missing your appointment."

"You clearly had more important matters to attend to," T'Pol replied flatly as she took the proffered seat.

"You know better than that, Commander," Phlox said with a slight _tsk_. "Every patient is important. I'll have to use a hand scanner, although. The imaging chamber is offline again."

"I am not—current as to the repair schedule," T'Pol said hesitantly, sitting immobile while Phlox ran his scanner over her.

"I had a repair crew down here, but Commander Tucker reassigned them," Phlox commented, trying to keep T'Pol at ease with conversation. "He said the armory was a higher priority." Phlox chuckled. "We'll see how low a priority I am the next time he burns his fingers on a plasma conduit. Have you experienced any further withdrawal symptoms?"

"None," T'Pol answered.

"I'm only detecting trace amounts of trellium metabolites in your bloodstream," Phlox commented. "I could do a spinal fluid analysis, but I think it's hardly necessary. The levels in your blood are hardly worth mentioning." He couldn't help but notice T'Pol's unease. "That's good news." When he didn't get a response, he probed a little deeper. "What's bothering you?"

"My…emotions," she answered, stammering a bit. "They are growing more difficult to control. I thought…once I got the trellium out of my system, it would get easier, but my usual techniques for suppressing them haven't been effective."

Sighing, Phlox pulled up another chair and sat down beside T'Pol. "Has something happened to aggravate your condition?"

"Yes, Doctor," she replied softly, but showed no interest in going into detail.

"Your mind learned to use trellium as a crutch, T'Pol. The drug was doing all the work, so your natural skills atrophied. It's not surprising that you're struggling to cope with its absence. On Earth, there is a cautionary tale involving a creature called 'Humpty Dumpty.' Once something is broken, it's extremely hard to repair it."

T'Pol looked at the doctor with alarm. "Are you saying that these emotions may never subside?"

"You used trellium for three months," Phlox said in his gentlest tone. "It caused significant damage to your neural pathways—with time, you will see some improvement, but the chances are that you'll never fully recover." He hesitated as he saw T'Pol's lip quiver. "You may have to learn how to live with these emotions."

_Shout!  
Shout!  
SHOUT!_

_Don't you tell me how I feel__  
don't you tell me how I feel__  
don't you tell me how I feel__  
you don't know just how I feel!_

From high atop the mountain ledge, basking in the dying glows of Nevasa's blaze, the majesty of mother Vulcan spread in endless relief before T'Pol's eyes, the endless sea of rippling rock disturbed only by far-distant outcroppings of orange-hued mesas standing resplendent in the decaying embers of time; rock merging seamlessly into plateau, plateau merging seamlessly into sky, sky merging seamlessly in dazzling color between whispery clouds of sandy dust obscuring the spherical orb of T'Rukh high overhead.

Colors blurred, and lines disappeared, as the light changed qualities in a thousand miniature minuets accentuating the passage of each moment of Nevasa's decline. Details became lost in the movement of light, in the visual sensations that played upon the eye with transient splendor; bright and varied, immediate and timeless, subject and background intertwined as shape gave way to the essence of light-infused color.

Far abroad, partially obscured behind the wavering lines of highlighted dust, T'Pol saw the red glow of Nevasa as it hung half-submerged on the horizon. In time, it would sink beneath the surface of the desert, sending its final, solitary rays of burning heat into the atmosphere; but for now, it appeared indistinct, as a fire behind the haze of mirage illuminating the shadows of dusk with the erubescent flush of the pyre.

T'Pol watched with fascination as the star gingerly lowered itself the vista, the blurry ball of flame gradually shrinking as the telescopic rays darkened in crimson stain. The rocky wastelands were growing dark before her, the elegant swirls of wind-sculpted crust disappearing beneath the blackened shadows extending horizontally across the stone plains, and far-flung tablelands created darkened cutouts against the dwindling glow of fire.

T'Pol watched, silent and still, as the devouring inferno was itself quenched by the sinking of the day; and as Nevasa waned, the blazing oranges and reds grew darker. The embryonic glow of the desert was fading, and now, a distant smoke seemed to rise above the horizon, marking the final resting point of Nevasa's glory; the corkscrew spirals ascended upward, writhing their way into the dying afterglow.

Fiery winds gusted fiercely, ripping across the vacant wastelands with scorching fury, driving the twilight animals back into their underground dens with the promise of immolation; and the winds whipped about furiously, reaching even the heights of T'Pol's mountainside ledge. Standing there, on the edge of the fiery flames, she could feel the purifying blaze of the furnace; and in a moment of lucidity, she found herself floating, as if uplifted on the wind.

Carried by the gusts, she ascended upward and into the expanses fixed in fire. Lost in the incandescence, her vision became indistinct, and T'Pol felt herself growing weak. She cried out in supplication, wondering what she had done to bring this misery upon herself; and as she spoke, the firmament rumbled about her, the echo of her words. "What do you want from me?" T'Pol screamed.

Before her, in the flames of the fire, images began to pour forth; she saw mother Vulcan, the weary, aged world of her birth. With dizzying speed, the image morphed, scrolling backwards through atomic fury until the days when Nevasa was still young, and the hearth was green and blue, exploding with new life eager to stake a claim to the cosmos. And the smoke parted, revealing an ancient stone temple standing amidst the veldt, still glistening with fresh-hewn cuts.

Within the temple stood a solitary Vulcan, the _Alep-tel e'shua_, clad in robes; and he bellowed outward in firm voice. "We must make the hearts of these people calloused," he proclaimed strongly. "We must seal their ears and close their eyes, lest they learn to see and hear! The people have strayed from my ways! I am the one you are to fear, the one you are to dread!"

T'Pol watched again as time accelerated and wars broke out, pitting Vulcan against Vulcan and reason against fear. And in the cataclysms that ensued, the once-verdant savannahs became wastelands, growing not even the briers and thorns; and clouds circled the planet, but never rained. Before the command of the _Alep-tel e'shua__, _the land became forsaken, the fields ruined and ravaged; the great cities laid wrecked, the houses deserted and inhabitants slaughtered.

T'Pol shook uncontrollably, but Sa'vat refused to break the link; his fingers pressed against her face, gripping her tightly in his thrall. "Stop resisting," he commanded her, his voice resounding in her mind. "Do not fight it, T'Pol; splitting the link now will only harm you. _Embrace _it, T'Pol. _Feel _the emotions inside you. Excitement. Apprehension. Elation."

"And fear," T'Pol whispered, and again she tried to pull away. "Stop!" she pleaded, but the tentacles of Sa'vat's mind made their way in unheeded, shattering long-established walls and releasing demons sealed away eons before. "I don't want this!"

"You _will_," Sa'vat assured her. He lowered his quaking companion to the deck, hovering over her like a malevolent lover. "But you must accept it _completely._"

"_Let me go!_" T'Pol begged as the torrents roared through her mind, shattering everything in their path. Twisting and writhing, she sought to break his grip.

"You're making progress," Sa'vat spoke calmly. "Don't give up now."

"_LEAVE!_" T'Pol screamed, desperation resounding in her mind.

"You're feeling anger," Sa'vat replied, his voice beginning to build. "That's good, T'Pol. Your emotions are breaking the surface. Embrace them!"

"_NO!" _T'Pol screamed, and in the darkness, her mind shattered into a hundred pieces, loosing herself onto the waves.

_JUMP!  
JUMP!  
JUMP!_

_there is a hate that burns within__  
the most desperate place I have ever been__  
try to get back to where I'm from__  
the closer I get the worse it becomes!_

"Make way! Make way!" Archer barked frantically as he pushed the stretcher down the corridor, sending several crewmen leaping out of the path. Phlox, riding high on the crash bar and still wearing his EV suit, was moving at a frenetic pace, strapping T'Pol's arms down as she fought maniacally against the restraints. Across from him, a medic was doing the same with her legs, and another medic was riding the front of the stretcher, trying to lash a neural suppressor over T'Pol's forehead.

"She's coming to!" Archer shouted, watching as the maddened Vulcan fought harder, nearly tossing the front medic from the cart. Her head jolted up and crashed back down, again, and again, bashing her skull against the soft pillows set in place beneath her. Her body twisted to the left and to the right with insane fury, pulling against the restraining straps, and Phlox had to loosen one in fear that T'Pol would further damage her shoulder joint.

"Let me go!" T'Pol screamed with deranged violence as she fought against the restraints. Her face contorted in berserk rage. "Let me go!"

Archer rounded the corner, using old-fashioned slalom skills to make the quick turn, and as T'Pol continued her demented battle, a short dash brought the stretcher into sickbay.

The entire medical staff was on alert, awaiting her arrival, and Phlox's skills as a medical field marshal leapt into action. "Transfer her to the primary bed!" he barked, hopping off the stretcher. A medic promptly appeared at the doctor's side, helping Phlox with the EV garment. "Prep ten cc's hydrocordrazine! Get out the restraining belts!"

As a crew of five medics tried to grab hold of T'Pol's flailing, violent limbs to move her to the diagnostic bed, she continued to fight back with demonic raving and convulsive spasms of fury. As she twisted in their grasp, the medics nearly dropped her, and T'Pol's hands found purchase around the neck of one of her tormentors. "I'll kill you!" she screamed with unhinged fright. "I'll kill you!"

"We're not going to hurt you!" Archer tried to sound reassuring as he helped catch the drooping body, but his words came out panicked. "You're going to be okay!"

"You lie! You lie!" T'Pol screamed in lunatic craze. Her arm swung around, nearly knocking the captain senseless. "Get away from me!"

Together, the team hefted their patient onto the diagnostic bed, and four of them leapt on, using their full body weight to hold down her frenzied limbs as two others began fastening the straps over her delirious body. She screamed with rabid howls as the straps were gradually tightened.

"The damage is more severe than I expected!" Phlox shouted, scurrying over to his patient. The readied hypospray was slapped into his palm.

"Can you reverse it?" Archer called out, sliding around to T'Pol's head for the hurried consultation.

"I'm not certain!" Phlox answered. As he tried to plant the hypospray against T'Pol's neck, she fought frantically, struggling to evade the medicine. "I need to stabilize her first!"

"He's trying to kill me!" T'Pol screamed fiendishly. "You killed the others! Murderers! Get away!" Without command, Archer grabbed T'Pol's head, using all his strength to hold in it place momentarily; as the crazed Vulcan fought against the vice press, Phlox finally landed his blow, injecting the hyrdocordrazine into her artery.

T'Pol's eyes grew woozy, and her ravings dwindled off into silence. Her body gave a few last jerky moves before settling down into slumber.

"Let's get her into the chamber!" Phlox ordered, and after securing the last strap, two of the medics pushed T'Pol into the diagnostic machine.

_Numb.  
Numb.  
Numb._

_All the world has closed her eyes__  
Tired faith all worn and thin__  
For all we could have done__  
And all that could have been…_

T'Pol was happy to be vacating the tiny apartment, happy to be leaving the hospital, and upset that she was happy. And angered that she was upset. And chagrined by her anger. And…

And tired by the endless cycle of emotion that had overtaken her mind, consuming her in the downward spiral of regression upon regression, each feeling compounding another in ceaseless motion. She was well past controlling the tempest, far away from stemming the constant tides that thrashed and broke upon what remained.

Now, it was only the strength of deadening agents that eased the suffering, leaving T'Pol in soporific calm; it eased the pain, but she felt herself receding, as if drifting away behind the smoke stains. _Out there, _up above her, the world moved about as if shadow puppets on a wall; oblivious to her presence, ignoring her commands, perception disappeared as the dimensions collapsed in the artifice of reality.

But it was a relief, this somniferous numb! It allowed her to go about the movements of life, walking through the scenes of the world as if she belonged in that hollow realm. It restored a semblance of ordinary life, even as she stared into empty eyes that lived bold-faced lies. It was little more than a tingle; a thought exemplified, then immediately forgotten, the little flaws disappearing in the hole of her memory.

As T'Pol threw her clothing into a duffel, taking little care to fold and press it neatly, flashing thoughts of a distant life crossed her mind; in her youth, when the world was new and her life was fresh. And like a reel, it spilled across her mind, a lifetime of collapse; _it was not supposed to be this way,_ she pleaded silently. _This person that I have become—this is not what I was supposed to be._

The light of the sun faded, black holes piercing the brilliant shimmer, circling winds blowing away the glow as darkness settled in. And yet she could not escape; it held her fast, pulling her in until she crossed the horizon, little more than a wing and a prayer in the frozen depths of nothingness.

She had few belongings with her, and took only a minute as she packed, her body moving independent of her mind. It was time to leave the hospital; they had done all they could, and it was not enough. She had little idea of what would come next; she harbored vague notions of drifting off into Vulcan's Forge, perhaps retracing the steps of the ancient masters, in the hope of eventually finding herself amid the solitude of the desert. But first, obligation beckoned; she would travel home, ever the dutiful daughter of Vulcan.

The soft chime of the door disturbed T'Pol's motions, while doing little to throw off her thoughts; with little awareness, she crossed the small room and opened the door, her thoughts still floating on a vapor trail.

"Hi, T'Pol," the nervous guest greeted her.

T'Pol felt a thudding rhythm as realization blew through her bliss. "Commander Tucker?" she replied softly, shocked into stillbound dumbness. "What—what are you doing here?"

_Remember.  
Remember.  
Remember._

_And in a dream I'm a different me__  
with a perfect you__  
we fit perfectly__  
and for once in my life I feel complete._

_Sleep.  
Sleep.  
Sleep._

_Fade out._


End file.
